Empowering Practices: Perspectives on Modernization in Finland 1860 - 1960

Authors

• Laura Stark, PhD, Professor University of Jyväskylä http://orcid.org/0000-0002-3342-1712

Keywords:

practice theory, power, agency, modernization, rural Finland, agrarian

Abstract

ln the mid-19th century, Finland was a predominantly agrarian society with no public schools for Finnish speakers, no railroads, and few industries. The vast majority of Finnish-speakers were unable to write, nor could most of them read fluently. Today, Finland is one of the best educated, most technically advanced societies in the world. Nowhere in Western Europe has social and technological change occurred more rapidly. The speed of modernization in Finland raises the crucial question of how the rural populace was able to adopt and absorb new social and technological forms so quickly. Such a question is inextricably linked to the question of how modernization was lived and experienced.